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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA 15 The Catholic Home. Believe me, the Church is a tender and loving Mother and nowhere shows this tenderness and love more than when she resolutely opposes mixed-marriages. A truly Christian Home is a great blessing, but every home whose occupants are Chris tians is not necessarily a Christian Home. The fact that parents and children are Catholics does not make it a Catholic Home. What is it that makes a visitor say on coming in: “I see you are Catholics here.” Is it not because he deteccs that indefinable thing called the Catholic spirit. Nothing may have been said, or done, but the Home has proclaimed itself Catholic. What makes a home a Catholic one? It is not merely the fact that all are Catholics, because unforunately there are homes where only Catholics are found, and very decidedly they are not Catho lic homes. I should expect to find in a Catholic home these things: Catholic pictures of the Sacred Heart, our Blessed Lady, and some of the Saints; Catholic papers and books on the table, showing evidence that they are read; conversation on Catholic topics at table and in the living room; rosaries and scapulars worn by all; regular attendance at Sunday Mass ; fre quent approach to the Sacraments ; a peep in the nursery would find the little children at mother’s knees saying their night and morning prayers ; night and morning prayers reverently said by all. The sound of the Angelus bell recognized; a firm con viction on the part of all the children that they had the best Mother and the best Home in the world; manly boys, and wom anly girls, all desiring to help mother in any way they could ; a loving deference to the words of Father and Mother, and a happy union in the family life. I think I should call that a Catholic Home. And most as suredly I would not call that home a Catholic Home where I found these things: no attention paid to the word of Father and Mother; finding a home on the public streets where the com panions are vicious or dangerous; the frequenting, without remonstrance of parents, of dangerous places of amusements; profanity or vulgarity in speech, of the use of suggestive words ; habitual missing of Mass on Sundays, and staying away from Confession. As regards the parents; failing to enforce obedi ence ; giving bad example by profanity; by failing to go to Mass every Sunday, or in going to Confession ; permitting the children to go to any place of amusement, and roaming the streets day and night. I would not call that home a Catholic home. Ex ample is, after all, the best teacher and in the last home de scribed very bad example is given the children in the primary school, the home, and by teachers who are appointed by God. One day our Blessed Lord said that the children had guardian angels, who always saw the face of His father in Heaven. We know they are there pleading and praying for the little ones with the hope that at last they may be worthy to receive the great reward promised to them who persevere. With what delight do the guardian angels see the care taken by Catholic parents in a Catholic home, that the children should not offend God? And what do the guardian angels think of the home where no such care is taken, and very bad example is given the little ones of Christ? Our Lord said once, that if a man gave bad example to a child, or placed any obstacles in its way to God, it had been bet ter for him that he had never been born, or that a mill-stone were tied around his neck, and he be drowned in the sea. As I sit here writing these lines, I once more recall that scene in Philadelphia nearly fifty years ago. I wondered then at what must have been the various emotions aroused by the wonderful voice of the singer. Some, I am sure, were weeping for sheer joy as they recalled home, some had pangs of regret as they recalled how poorly they had requited the tenderness and care of home; others I feel sure were promising themselves that they would do all in their power to make their homes real homes* Soon the children will be home for vacation, and the home will resound with their voices. It will be Father and Mother, a great solace for you at the close of life, that you tried to make your home a real Catholic home and that your children could truly say: There is no place like home. Benjamin J. Keiley, Bishop of Savannah. Given at Savannah, June 3, Feast of the Sacred Heart, 1921. WHY A GEORGIA METHODIST MINIS TER ENTERED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (Continued from Page 6) and deed; and if Catholic Sovereigns used strong measures against heretics, Luther did not fail to employ the same arm of force against Catholics, and would have gone further if he could, but the Catholic party was too strong. If any one thinks that Luther, Calvin, or Henry VIII were lenient and merciful let him read the facts of history, and if he thinks they were paragons of virtue, let him consider their moral side. I speak with reverence when I say that it seems as if the omnipotent God was surely in difficult straits to find suitable instruments to effect His work, if He was obliged to use an apostate monk, who had broken his vows of Religion and who permitted Philip of Hesse to have two wives at the same time for no other reason than pure sensuality; or a “muchly married” King, whose lust, divorces, and murders recall the execrable house of the Herods; or a cold-blooded Calvin, who watched from a half- opened window the dying agony of Michael Servitus, whom he himself had condemned to be burned at the stake because he denied the dogmas of the Trinity. The next thing which had the most powerful in fluence upon my mind were the doctrinal dissension among the “Reformers,” in reference to the Sacra ments, and especially as to whether Christ was really present in the Holy Eucharist or not. This was the great wedge which split them into hostile camps. Luther with all of his daring could never be brought to deny the real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in this most holy sacrament. He said that he could not withstand the force of the Holy Scripture and the witness of past centuries in its favor. Had he been as honest as to the other dogmas he denied and derided, he would indeed have been better. The Beginning of the Dawn. The problem forced itself upon me. What if the Roman view of this question is after all the right one? And certainly it is the view held by the Chris tian world for sixteen centuries, and which the greater part, and that the most representative of his toric Christianity, holds now and more firmly chan ever. Then if this view is true, what a farce and travesty is my celebration of the Lord’s Supper! What opened my eyes still more, was that _ as I searched into the earliest records of the Christian faith, such as they are given by even Protestant His torians for instance, Dr. Schaff, I was astonished to find the admissions they are compelled to make, that the early Christians regarded the Holy Eucharist not only as a sacrament, but also a sacrifice. When in the course of my reading I came to study the vicissitudes of the Protestant Church in England, the Oxford or Tractarian Movement claimed a special interest. The more I read the greater my interest be came in the great questions which agitated the soul of J. H. Newman and led him to renounce the English Church and enter the Roman. I began to realize what is meant by the Sacramental Christianity, and I saw that it had ever been the Christianity of the past. About this time a missionary friend of the Ameri- an Episcopal Church loaned me several books, among which were one or two of Bishop Gore’s that gave me additional light upon Sacramental Christianity. My soul was fully aroused; I longed to know. the truth. Moreover, I felt compromised as a minister of the Gospel; for did I not baptize and celebrate the Lord’s Supper continually and yet did not know what I ought to believe and teach about these rites? I knew of course what the Methodist Church taught, but its teaching was so utterly foreign from that of early Christianity that I soon began seriously to doubt its tenets. I had attended also services at the Angelican Cathedral in Shanghai, and had been im pressed with the reverance and solemnity of the services—in such marked contrast with the “free and easy” way the Methodists and other Protestants who dislike ritualistic forms conducted theirs. Ceremonies express some of the profoundest truths of the Chris tian faith and it seemed to me that such a service was far better suited for public divine service than that of non-conformists, whose rituals and forms often vary more or less according to the tempera ment and ability of their ministers to pray, preach and conduct services as the “Spirit moves them.” (To be Continued) The thirty-ninth Annual Sunreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus will be held in San Fran cisco, August 2-3-4. Over 20,000 Knights from all parts of the country are exnected to be in attendance. State Deputy Thomas P. Walsh, Jr., and State Dep uty-elect John B. McCallum will go from Georgia.